Is He Having Trouble Staying Aroused? Suggest a Little Him Time
HealthNewsby Katrina DeVera, Last updated August 10, 2011

Is He Having Trouble Staying Aroused? Suggest a Little Him Time

According to a new study, men are more likely to experience erectile dysfunction when their female partners form strong friendships with the guys.  The study in the American Journal of Sociology suggests that a man’s social network affects every aspect of his life, including his sex life.

Sociologists Benjamin Cornwell from Cornell University and Edward Laumann from the University of Chicago led a study of the sexual habits of 3,000 American men between the ages of 57 and 85. About a quarter of these men experienced “partner betweenness,” a term describing the relationship in which a woman becomes equally or more involved in her partner’s social network. That includes women making friends with her partners’ friends.

Researchers found that this particular group of men was 92 percent more likely to experience erectile dysfunction than those who had not experienced partner betweenness.

Why? Well, it wasn’t because they felt threatened by the possible outcomes of these developing relationships (i.e. infidelity, loss of trust). Instead, they seemed to be much more concerned with their own relationships with the guys. More specifically, men might be more worried about losing their control, privacy, self-esteem and masculinity as their women buddy up to their boys.

The effect was most prominent in men aged 57 to 64, perhaps due to major life changes, such as retirement, that affect their sense of identity. Cornwell and his colleagues suggest that men develop different relationship priorities after this age, leaving their sex lives less affected by partner betweenness.

Although this study does not specifically identify any concrete evidence of the causes of male impotence, it does give us more insight into the importance of social structures to the American male.